Page 20 of Eight Years (The Trident Trilogy 1)

Chapter Twelve

Mason

Virginia Beach, Virginia

2019

Culver wants to see me, so I head over to his office. As I’m rounding the corner, I see Raine standing by the door.

“You in this meeting too?” I say as I glance in Culver’s window, and see the back of the mirage’s head. She has her hair up in a twisty thing, but there’s no mistaking that strawberry blonde color.

“No. I’m just waiting for my colleague from the agency. She’s the one who’s here to brief you on the op in Sarajevo,” Raine says, confirming my ID.

We both look over as the door opens. The mirage walks out, and looks right at me, smiling, her green eyes sparkling. I can already tell she has a mischievous streak, and it’s sexy as fuck.

“Master Chief, nice to see you again,” she says with not a hint of a Southern drawl. She’s trying to be all business now.

“Miss Marsh.”

She’s wearing a suit, heels, and glasses, trying to cover up the sex appeal she ladled out like soup last night. It’s not working at all.

“Agent Marsh.” She corrects me, and gives me a quick once over.

Damn. The way she just looked my body over makes me want to throw her up against a wall and take her right here.

“My bad. Agent Marsh,” I say, forcing myself not to look at the opening in her blouse. “You hustle anyone else at pool last night?”

“Hustle? I think you mean play a completely honest and principled game of pool against inferior opponents,” she says, smiling.

“No, that’s not what I meant at all.” I smile back at her as Culver joins us quickly. He looks at me like he might pull out his side arm and put it between my eyes.

“I see you two have already met,” Culver says, firing the words out like bullets.

I step back and motion Millie past me. “You owe me another game to win my money back.”

“Only if I can break,” she says.

She turns around and smiles at me, and turns back around in one graceful, fluid motion. I leer at her as she walks down the hall with Raine.

Culver sees how I’m looking. “If you’re ready for our meeting, Master Chief,” he says curtly, motioning me to take a chair.

I barely hit the chair when he continues. “Mason, Millie’s dad was a SEAL—a man who I served with, a man who saved my life. He was one of the best men I’ve ever known. As he’s no longer with us, I feel like I can step in for him and say that if you ever touch Millie sexually or, you know, just even casually, like tapping her on the shoulder, I will kill you. Then, I will take your body to my workshop, cut it up into tiny pieces, and feed the pieces to the sharks in the bay.”

Ah, now I see what has caused his bad mood. “Damn, Culver. It seems like your plan is pretty advanced. I mean you’ve definitely wanted to kill me for a while, right?”

“I haven’t, actually. Just now for the first time when I saw you looking at her like that,” he says, motioning toward the door. “You know, I’d prefer you not look at her either. Or talk to her.”

“We’re going to work one of her packages. I’m probably going to have to look at her and talk to her.” And, to be honest, I’m going to want to do a lot more to her before she leaves town.

“Keep it to a minimum. I know how you work and you know, usually, I couldn’t give a shit about who you sleep with, but she’s so far off-limits. So far. The furthest. You understand that?”

“I’m going to work with her. I wouldn’t hook up with her anyway.” It seems like the right thing to say, but I know he’s not going to buy it for a second.

“Like you’ve never slept with someone who works with us. I’ve seen the looks you get around here, and again, usually, I could not care less. I do not care about your sex life. I don’t want to think about it at all. But not Millie. Never Millie. Tell me you understand.”

“Yeah, I got it. I got it.” My brain is telling me this is probably for the best, but the rest of my body is not so sure. I think I agree with the rest of my body.

Culver is staring at me like death, so I repeat, “I got it, man. Off-limits.”

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